Kelly Ritter is director of the Undergraduate Rhetoric Program, Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
She is the incoming editor (2012) of College English.

Paul Kei Matsuda is Professor of English and the Director of Writing Programs at Arizona State University, where he works closely with doctoral and master’s students in rhetoric and composition as well as applied linguistics and TESOL. Previously, he taught at Miami University and the University of New Hampshire, where he directed the composition program.

Exploring Composition Studies

Sites, issues, and perspectives

Kelly Ritter and Paul Kei Matsuda

Kelly Ritter and Paul Kei Matsuda have created an essential introduction to the field of composition studies for graduate students and instructors new to the study of writing. The book offers a careful exploration of this diverse field, focusing specifically on scholarship of writing and composing. Within this territory, the authors draw the boundaries broadly, to include allied sites of research such as professional and technical writing, writing across the curriculum programs, writing centers, and writing program administration.

Importantly, they represent composition as a dynamic, eclectic field, influenced by factors both within the academy and without. The editors and their sixteen seasoned contributors have created a comprehensive and thoughtful exploration of composition studies as it stands in the early twenty-first century. Given the rapid growth of this field and the evolution of it research and pedagogical agendas over even the last ten years, this multi-vocal introduction is long overdue.